Admin

A lot of people have recently asked me how to choose the right company for their IT support. Below are my guidelines on what to look for.

1. Check how many engineers they have on staff – not subcontracted.
2. If they do subcontract – ask why.
3. Visit their workshop – it is your lifeblood they are looking after. Make sure they have the tools to deal with it.
4. Get references – and make sure you have the name of the technician they worked with as good technicians will often leave a bad company.
5. Follow up the references – ask for examples of problems that they have solved for you. See if you can speak to the technician in the reference.
6. Ensure that you meet the technicians – after all, you will be dealing with them, not the guy who sold it to you.
7. Make sure that IT is their primary focus – you don’t ask your mechanic to fix a filling / perform heart surgery.

Most importantly you should remember that if your IT fails, your business will suffer. Don’t just accept at face value what a salesperson tells you a company can do as sales people are generally not technical people. Sales people are commission focussed – technical people are solution focussed. No one (that I know of) pays their technicians on a per fix basis. Sales people are commissioned on a per contract basis (generally).

Ultimately you need to be sure that the company you choose values your business as much as you value your IT. That is why it is important to pick a company that has made an investment in staff, workshop and spares and not just in a flashy advertising campaign/website.

Personally speaking, if the company who approaches me for IT support doesn’t have 100% focus on IT solutions, I’m not interested. My lifeblood should be their lifeblood – my data is vital to me and it should be to them. I don’t want anybody looking after my business / data who isn’t 100% focussed on that.